Learn how Sam Jacobs generated $1.5M in pipeline in 18 months

*This is Sam's total engagement numbers from his 8 year journey (through June 6, 2024) 

Introduction

I've been following Sam Jacobs on LinkedIn for the past 18 months.  During that time, he's generated a significant amount of interest from others around him on how he's built such a massive following on LinkedIn. 

One of the things that stands out to me most is when he says: 'My LinkedIn profile produced 50% of Pavilion's organic revenue." - I had to pay attention to it.  It's not everyday that someone sharing with you what they are doing to build their personal brand and the impact it's had on their business. 

During EP61: What does Salesforce's revenue miss mean for SaaS, Sam talks about how he's in it for the long haul to build Pavilion.  There is a discussion about whether the SaaS business model has moved from user based to consumption and we'll see how it plays out.  

The point here is, building a personal brand is part of a long term play for building your business.  There are no short cuts and it takes time to figure out your creator style.  I believe Sam is The Reliable Anchor (not like Ron Burgundy in Anchorman) similar to that of a someone on your team who continues to show up, do the work and outlast everyone else.  That is Sam Jacobs.  That is a Reliable Anchor.

Content Style: The Reliable Anchor

The Reliable Anchor is someone who will show up and be in your corner.  They will always be there for you no matter what happens.  There are creators that decide it's time to take a break (or pause creation) but Sam has been at it consistently for years.  

He's found his creator style and more than anything - it's just continuing to show up.  

You may find different types of content (video, text, images, etc.) over time but the through line for Sam is showing up.  

Here are a few others I'd recommend you consider looking at...

Other Reliable Anchors Worth Following

We All Start Somewhere

When you get started on LinkedIn - it's just about showing up and hitting publish.  For Sam, this started on June 22, 2016.  He's since posted 1,460 times (pulled June 6, 2024) so remember that it's just about showing up and getting started.

On this same day, he posted twice. It’s possible that creating multiple posts per day is just something that Sam loves from the start. 

Of course, his posts were inconsistent back then, but still there were many days he posted twice despite taking breaks for days or weeks.

His 4 posts for in June 2016 were posted on only 2 days - 2 posts per day on both days.

Let's start with his first post in June 2016 . 

Hook: Re: the Business Insider piece, here's our own Amber van Moessner on why your audience expects live (video) content.

Do you notice something here?  

Only 3 likes, no comments, no reposts. 

Back to my original point here, we all start somewhere!

Good things take time to grow and building up your personal brand is well worth it but remember that good things take time. 

Sam continued to post throughout 2016 with an average of 2-5 posts per month and none in August.

Here are some of his posts as he continued his creation journey in 2016.

July 01, 2016: Great initiative by Steve Richard and the team at ExecVision (a Mediafly company) (2 reactions)

November 18, 2016: Livestream is streaming and producing the World Chess Championship this month… (47 reactions, 2 comments, 1 repost)

Of all the 20 content Sam posted in 2016, this post had the highest engagement.

April 19, 2017 :Our founders, Kathryn Minshew and Alexandra Cavoulacos wrote a book, titled "The New Rules of Work"... (93 reactions, 2 comments, 3 reposts)

One thing you'll notice from this and some of his other posts, it doesn't matter whether you're a superior, contemporary or subordinate, if he believes you should be out there, Sam is going all the way to put you out there, mentioning your name and singing all the praise you deserve. 

Let’s get into what I noticed and why it matters in his journey. 

Testing Phase

On May 21, 2017, Sam made a shocking announcement about a militant move he made that turned his feed and community around. 

And for the first time, his post significantly crossed the margin of 200 reactions, having 542 reactions, 27 comments, and 5 reposts.

Check out his hook; 

By aggressively unfollowing the people on LinkedIn that share spam, chain mail, and those weird saccharine fake sounding journeys of "self fulfillment"...

And like you probably would think, you can almost see the result of this move on his posts and overall engagement. 

September 29, 2017:

With 585 reactions, 31 comments, and 6 reposts, this simple post became Sam's highest performing post since he started posting on LI and throughout 2017.

January 11, 2018:

For the first time on his content creation journey, Sam got about 1k reactions (993 reactions, 265 comments, 17 reposts)

Although his posts have been inconsistent, his activity was sporadic. For instance, he only shared one post each in February and September of 2018.

April 18, 2018: Excited to announce I partnered up with GTMnow to launch a new podcast featuring current practitioners in sales and marketing. (140 reactions, 20 comments, 2 reposts.)

June 30, 2018: Something I learned from the master, Peter Kovacs. (66 reactions, 3 comments, 1 repost.)

December 11, 2018: Great fun chatting with the author of such influential sales tomes. Thanks to Gartner and Brent Adamson for being so insightful. (35 reactions, 2 comments)

January 25, 2019: In Boston for the Q1 Boston Revenue Collective dinner… (105 reactions, 8 comments, 2 reposts.)

This is one of the few times Sam didn’t post content of only text. He added a picture of the dinner menu here. It may be safe to think Sam only ads pictures or any other media when it is absolutely necessary for his content. 

March 11, 2019: I’ve been to a lot of conferences. (201 reactions, 4 comments, 3 reposts.)

May 7, 2019: A couple people you should know about. (209 reactions, 10 comments, 2 reposts.)

October 8, 2019: When you're modeling your hiring plan, please understand that your new sales reps shouldn't be expected to make a sale shorter than your average sales cycle. (546 reactions, 53 comments, 19 reposts.)

December 8, 2019: So much of success is simply giving yourself permission to be great.

On March 12, 2020, Sam posted a content about the pandemic and the action of the US government using this hook;

It is a failure of US government's leadership that every single company (and institution broadly) is forced to develop their own #coronavirus policy independently. Total insanity.

The lockdown was still fresh and he took advantage of that, talked about COVID. Of course, this initiative drove him over 1k reactions since he started creating content on LinkedIn. 

April 13, 2020: Every great thing that has ever happened to me professionally came nearly as a direct consequence of being fired.

Probably wondering why this screenshot has to be here. Of course, its because of the content, not just the numbers of reactions and reposts. 

A month ago, Sam spiked across 1k reactions, got a few hundreds in-between and now, another spike. 

This was in the heat of the lockdown and several millions of people have lost their jobs across the world. So, this was a very timely post, not just one that puts his company out there, but also delivers the value of hope, support, and positive response to life. 

September 11, 2020: 

February 6, 2021:

Posts like this boosts audience trust as well as your confidence in what you do. 

June 10, 2021

November 20, 2021

Sam dedicated this post to just one person, Anne Nicholson Juceam, his company’s first hire. 

A cool "thank you" letter on LI.

You probably know by now that Sam shares about people, pressing situations, his company, best practices, and whatever he believes is useful.

March 11, 2022

Finding Sam's Creator Style

From July, 2022, Sam started posting almost every day.

On some days, he posted multiple times, sometimes up to 3-4 times. 

(Still not every day though, but definitely an improvement from the 1-2x a week or even none on some months thing.)

July 6, 2022

With this post in July 2022, Sam began engaging the comments on his posts. 

This action alone boosts the algorithm of LI posts.

July 30, 2022: Remember two kinds of people: (595 reactions, 20 comments, 4 reposts.)

This was a repost from  June 10, 2021 👆 , a year earlier - one of his high-performing posts from the previous year. And still got a good engaging result, though less than the previous performance. Would anything improve if he also improve the content's performance with the same idea???

(Following his decision to start posting more frequently/almost everyday, and even multiple post a day; his reactions has also improved. for the most part, it has been ranging from over 100 to a couple of hundreds. Although some are still less than 100, but it has generally improved. )

He also engages his comments.

September 9, 2022

October 18, 2022: Imagine two people working at a startup. (3551 reactions, 283 comments, 126 reposts)

December 23, 2022: After 45 years on this planet, building 15 different companies and generating over $1B in cumulative ARR, I’ve learned something pretty straightforward about my fellow human beings: (3294 reactions, 154 comments, 70 reposts)

February 8, 2023: 2021 Unicorn Startups vs 2023 Donkey Startups: (13982 reactions, 912 comments, 1277 reposts.)

All time high performance since Sam started posted on LI up until today. Also first time crossing 10k

This post reminds me of The Contrarian Unicorn where I've talked about how Adam Robinson acts and is portrayed on LinkedIn. 

March 8, 2023

May 18, 2023: Imagine two people working at a startup. (11749 reactions, 996 comments, 575 reposts.)

A repost from October 18, 2022 👆, one of his high-performing posts the previous year. This same post had 3.5k reactions last year. This time, has more than 11k reactions.

August 2, 2023: Most founders misunderstand how to make money. (1361 reactions, 157 comments, 42 reposts)

October 25, 2023: The second-to-last time I was fired was a turning point in my life. (1080 reactions, 153 comments, 12 reposts.)

January 22, 2024: 

(This is another repost from December 23, 2022 - One of his high-performing content. Back then, this same post had 3294 reactions, 154 comments, 70 reposts.)

February 27, 2024: If you have high ACV and reasonable retention, the very best way to do outbound is to get your reps on the road meeting with customers in person. (734 reactions, 54 comments, 9 reposts.)

April 1, 2024: 

May 14, 2024: GTM is taking over the world. (1524 reactions, 125 comments, 38 reposts.)

So what does all this mean for you?

The Reliable Anchor: Is it for you? 

You can't just become a Reliable Anchor.  You must spend the time to show up day after day and year after year.  I don't know what amount of time must go by for you to be classified as a Reliable Anchor but I will let you know when I define it a bit further. 

Until the, remember to focus on finding your creator style and just showing up. 

You'll know that you're doing the right thing when you're: 

• Posting 3x/week 
• Commenting 30 times per day 
• Sending 100 connections requests per week 
• Leveraging RB2B.com to recognize your website visitors and sending outbound emails to them

You'll see that Sam Jacobs has been working with Alec Paul to help him with his LinkedIn strategy BUT all you need to do is hit publish.  

Conclusion

Here’s what you should take away from Sam's journey that started in 2016: 

• Posting 3-4 times per DAY will benefit you (1x/day is sufficient) 
• Showing up and engaging with comments on your post has massive impact 
• Don't forget to ask for help

You can see Sam and Alec talking about how they created 115M+ impressions in this video. It's wild to think that Alec has had such a massive impact for those that want to take LinkedIn to THIS level.  

If you have any questions about the journey or want to talk through the details more, please send me an email to: andrew@andrewcmcguire.com

Until next week... I'll see you on LinkedIn.